Tata Group’s publisher Westland has taken Flipkart to the Delhi High Court alleging that (pdf) Flipkart is violating copyrights and the IT Act by selling Amish Tripathi’s latest novel Scion of Ikshvaku on its platform. This was first reported by the Economic Times. According to the ET report, Westland claims that it signed a 2 month exclusive deal with Amazon to sell the book via Amazon. The Delhi High Court heard the matter and has asked Flipkart to respond by 4 August. Flipkart, allegedly, denied this violation by stating that it was only a marketplace connecting sellers and customers through its platform. A Flipkart spokesperson told ET that the Delhi High Court declined to pass a restraint order against Flipkart India or any of the sellers with respect to the sale of the Tripathi book. A similar situation had arisen when publisher Rupa had signed an exclusive deal with Flipkart to sell Chetan Bhagat’s Half Girlfriend book and found that Amazon was selling the book on its platform. It is not known how long Flipkart had the rights to sell the Bhagat book for. Flipkart, at that point, had said that it was an open marketplace where sellers were free to sell items of their choice. Previous copyright violation cases: - Last month, Nalli Sarees served a notice to Snapdeal for allegedly having its registered trademark Nalli as a search word and copying images from its website for back-grounding an offer on silk sarees. Snapdeal removed Nalli sarees from its platform following the cease…
